David Seow's Blog, page 28

James Frey in Singapore

This weekend best-selling author, James Frey, made an in-store appearance at Books Kinokuniya to promote his latest book Endgame: The Calling, so of course I had to be there to get my books signed.
His latest book is an action-packed apocalyptic thriller about the impending end of the world and its alien connection and that features codes that the reader will have to solve. The first person to solve the codes will get a key that unlocks a chest at Caesar's Palace  containing US$ 500, 000 in gold coins. 


Endgame is the first in a series of 3 books. The readers who solve the codes in the subsequent books will receive US$ 1 million and US$1.5 million respectively. Pretty awesome, no?So during his discussion, Frey asked who believed in alien life and he said that I looked like I was a believer and of course I am. He then read an excerpt from the book before he began signing for a long line of fans.

As Chinese New Year is approaching, I brought along my book The Lion Dance for him as a souvenir and I inscribed it to his young daughter, Margot. And in return he signed my copies of Endgame and I am Number Four. Thanks, Mr Frey!

United World College (East) and Quayside Isle School Visits. Thanks for having me!

I started my week of school visits at United World College (East). I normally take a taxi when I'm travelling around town, but on the day of my visit I decided to be adventurous and I took a train. I set out from home an hour before my session was due and I arrived at the train station with about 45 minutes to spare. That's when the trouble started. I was told that there would be no problems catching a cab, but there was a surprisingly long line and my attempts to book a cab were unsuccessful. As the minutes ticked by I began to panic. I hate being late more than anything else. I called Denise and Kelvin, my distributors and school runners, explaining the situation, but as she doesn't drive either, and couldn't pick me up, I was basically stuck at the taxi stand.

Thankfully a lady behind me in the queue told me that I might have better luck at the cab stand at the mall across the street. I hightailed it to the stand and within a minute I caught a cab and floored it to the school. I was about 8 minutes late and I felt completely horrible about it. Kelvin met me at the security and quickly ushered me to the primary school library where everyone was waiting for me!
Apologising for my tardiness, I launched into my session. My friend and fellow picture book author, Emily Lim was already there waiting to watch my session even more harrowing as she was speaking right after me.



Anyway the kids were great and so responsive to all my questions. I usually start my session with a photo of me as a baby, saying it's  a photo of the cutest baby ever. And most of the kids will agree - out of good manners - but there will be one or two who shout "No it isn't! And that usually sets the tone for the rest of my session.


After taking some questions and handing out stickers and paper dolls,  I was presented with a nicely wrapped gift that the kids asked me to unwrap right there. It was a nice UWC tumbler. Just what I need.  Emily was up next and she did a brilliant job as always. Thank you to the wonderful teachers and kids of UWC (East) for having me. It was a blast!

My next visit was to Quayside Isle on Sentosa. I first went there last year right before my trip to London. The teachers and kids are great! I read to four classes and as always it was fun! Kids are so much smarter than the were when I was small. Or at least they are a lot smarter than I was!  Thanks for having me over again, Quayside Isle.

FANGIRL BY Rainbow Rowell

For the first meeting of our book club, we decided on Rainbow Rowell's brilliant book Fangirl. At first I thought it was about a fan of celebrities but what it's really about is a girl who writes fan fiction, who goes to college, has separation anxiety from her twin sister who likes the separation, has a manic depressive father and has abandonment issues because of her runaway mom.

Now, I couldn't have read it fast enough. It reminded me so much of my college years. Not that I could see myself in any one of the characters. OK, some may have a few similarities, but very minor ones. But a lot of the characters reminded me of my classmates. And if any of my old classmates are reading this, I'll leave you guessing to whom I am referring. But it's safe to say that they were female classmates!

School Visits

Soundtrack Saving Mr Banks End Title © Thomas Newman. 
And so a year of school visits has ended another one begins. Thank you to all the schools I've visited for the past year.

Popular Readers Choice Awards and NTUC Back to School Fair

In early December, the Popular Readers Choice Award prize giving ceremony took place and Kenneth gave out prizes in the English and Chinese categories. Congratulations to the winners who included Colin Cheong and Gaby Tye.



After the ceremony, I had to head on down to the National Library for the NTUC Back to School Fair, where Auntie Susanna was conducting an art workshop based on her story "Fun at the Opera". Even though Alex busy with his move to Bristol a few days ater, he was such a sport as always and donned a traditional opera costume for Auntie Susanna's workshop and storytelling.

Later that day, I conducted a creative writing workshop for a roomful of potential young authors and I have to say that they all came up with rather brilliant ideas. Other authors who participated at the fair were Dave Liew, Sarah Mounsey, Adan Jimenez and Felicia Low-Jimenez aka AJ Low, Lesley-Anne Lim and Eliza Teoh.

Shanghai 2014

Happy New Year, everyone. Sorry, I haven't updated this blog in a while but let me update you all now. At the end of November I went to Shanghai for the Shanghai Children's Book Fair with a delegation from the Singapore Book Council, which included: Chairperson, Claire Chiang, Evelyn Sue Wong, Koh Juat Muay, Andrea Pasion Flores, Linda Lingard, Auntie Susanna, Alycia, Tsai, Nury Vittachi, Kenneth and myself.


I jetted out with Auntie Susanna, Kenneth, Alycia and Tsai on the 18th of November on Cathay Pacific and after transiting in Hong Kong we transferred to Dragon Air for the last leg of our journey. 
We got in to Shanghai at about 4pm and shared a coach with Juat and Eveyln who had flown in on China Eastern to our hotel, Fraser Residences.


We had no little time spare as Auntie Susanna, Tsai, Kenneth and I freshened up and headed out for dinner with Auntie Jenny. She treated us to a fantastic meal that included hairy crab and beggar's chicken. Yum! We were so stuffed, we waddled back to our rooms after dinner for a good night's sleep before full day of engagements the next day.





Thanks for dinner Auntie Jenny.

The next day we headed out right after breakfast to visit the Shanghai Municipal Library, where Evelyn and I donated copies of our books.







After that we headed on to the Shanghai Children's Library for a quick tour. They've got a great programme for kids and we were privileged to view some of the books that the children that frequent the library have written and had published. It seems that writing and publishing their books have helped some of the kids who are introverted and shy with their social skills. And that's why it's so important to promote writing for kids and that's why it's so important that Singaporeans support the book council.
I look like I'm growing out of Ken's head here.
Famished by noon, we hightailed it to the Bund to meet Auntie Jenny and Kristina who treated us to a very yummy lunch. Did I say it was yummy? It was beyond Yummy Thanks, Auntie Jenny and Kristina.


Thanks for lunch, Auntie Jenny and Kristina
With our tummies full, Evelyn, Juat, Andrea and I went for a spot of shopping. Ok, there weren't that many toy shops around. Juat bought a blouse, Andrea bought some things for her kids and I bought a couple of cans at coke.When we were done, it was dinner time! Thanks for the yummy dinner Claire. It was delicious!


The chairman, Nury, Andrea, Evelyn, me, Kenneth and JuatFirst thing the next morning, we headed out to the fair. In fact we were so early that the doors weren't even open yet and we had to wait in the transport for a few minutes. Then when the fair opened we were given our passes. There must have been a mix up as my pass read Linda Lingard! Hey, Linda, there are two of us.


The Singapore Delegation
Thankfully, security didn't think it odd that a guy could be named Linda. I figured that if I was stopped, I would just say that my parents wanted a girl and that they chose the name Linda and decided to stick with it even though I was a boy!


AndreaOnce in, we went to one of the conference rooms for Linda and Andrea's panel discussion with Nury Vittachi. Then after lunch we attended the official signing of China as the country of focus for this year's Asian Festival of Children's Content.

Signing
With contract in place, the day was officially over and we went back to the hotel to freshen up for an early dinner. The next day, we went back to the Shanghai Children's Library for coffee and  took the opportunity to present them with some of our children's books before heading back to the fair. 
Auntie Susanna and Tsai




It was Juat and Evelyn's last day, so we had an early dinner before they left for the airport and Kenneth and Auntie Susanna took Alycia, Tsai for a walk and then dessert at a cafe before we called it a night.




The next day, we headed back to the fair for the last time and met with some publishers before going a spot of sight seeing and then an early dinner. Auntie Susanna managed to do a fair bit of bargaining before Kenneth treated us to dinner.

Our last day in Shanghai was spent going to a couple of bookstores and then window shopping before heading to the airport for our flight back. All in all, I would say that it was a pretty good trip! Actually, it would be fun to go back again but on a holiday, where I could take my time to walk around.

Tsai, Auntie Susanna and Kenneth

Sweet Tweeting with A Day with the Duchess

Lately A Day with a Duchess has been getting attention on Twitter and I would like to thank  the What Would Kate Do blog, Chloe Howard and Cindy Stockman from Royal Central and Jane from the Princess Kate blog and everyone who has retweeted the images of the books" Duchess Life, SweetGirl Holly, Allison Lackey, and the paper dolls. I am truly very grateful. A Day with the Duchess has been a labour of love and I've been a huge fan of the royals.

I've been writing children's picture books for a long time and it's been a struggle promoting them, so I really appreciate this more than you know. A Day with the Duchess is very special to me as I've been writing for many years and this book combines my love for writing kids stories with my interest in the royals. How often can a children's author like me get to do that?






Royal Central kindly conducted an interview with me for their wonderful website and they even held a giveaway for a copy of the book. CLICK HERE TO GO TO ROYAL CENTRAL
And the winner is…. Gail Cabana-Coldwell.  Congratulations, Gail. I hope you enjoy the book.
Another great Kate blog: What Would Kate Do very kindly featured A Day with the Duchess as well. Thanks so much.CICK HERE to go to What Would Kate do

The Singapore Literature Prize

So last week I was invited to the Singapore Literature Prize Award ceremony at the Regent Hotel. It was a formal affair so one was expected to dress up and so I did, one of the very rare times I actually do. 
I was seated at table along with my fellow book council ex-co member Juat and Ian Yap from the NLB. Dinner was delicious but it did take a while for the servers to get to us and they forgot the bread basket!








Now the Singapore Literature Prize is one award that I will never win because they don't have a children's section, so I had to 'steal' my friend Josephine Chia's Award for a photo. Maybe some of her award-winning magic will rub off on me and I'll eventually win an award for something or other.
Congratulations to Josephine who won for her book Kampung Spirit Gotong Royong: Life in Potong Pasir.
Me and my Singapore Literature Prize
OK, it's actually Josephine's Prize.

I brought my SLR camera with the intention of taking loads of photos but I accidentally hit manual on my lens and ended up taking loads of blurred photos. I'm a genius, what can I say.

My publisher, Edmund, Mr Epigram himself was delighted as his publication 'Ministry of Moral Panic' by Amanda Lee Koe snagged the prize for best fiction. Whenever his books win anything, it's the best time to approach him for a contract renewal  or a book proposal.

A few days after the awards ceremony, Kenneth facillitated a panel discussion with some of the winners including Yong Shu Hoong (Poetry), Josephine Chia (Non-fiction), Chow Teck Seng (Chinese Poetry) and Ms Krishnamurthi Mathangi (Commendation Tamil Poetry).




The tricky thing about panel discussions is that you'll get a few awkward questions from audience members, but the panelists handled themselves good humour, wit and aplomb.

Still on the topic of books, Kenneth, Emma and I ended our week at the Singapore Writers Festival by attending a special reception for Authors Paul Theroux, Jonathan Lethem and Barry Lopez hosted by US Ambassador Kirk Wagar and Mrs Crystal Wagar at their residence. Thank you, Ambassador and Mrs Wagar, it was an honour and thrill to have been invited.

Catching Up with Jacqueline Harvey

So for two weeks, my good friend best-selling author Jacqueline Harvey was in town for school visits and the Singapore Writers Festival. Ken, Emma and I caught up with her for dinner right after the WTA finals and we all went to the dimsum restaurant at ION which is a favourite. Jacquie, her sister Sarah, Mum and had lunch there last year, so we decided to try it again. And as usual it was good!



Mum and I caught up with her again after Dave Liew's book launch and then again on Saturday at the American Club. My friend Channie's daughter Drew and her BFF Sarah are huge fans of Jacqueline's and when I told them we were friends they just had to meet her. Since they missed out on meeting Jacquie last year, we arranged for them to meet her at the club.  So over burgers and chocolate lava cake, the girls got their own one on one with the creator of Alice Miranda and Clementine Rose.  And They went home with signed books and posters. How cool is that?

After lunch, Jacquie went back to work on her next best-seller and I headed back home to work on my next afternoon nap.




A few days later members of the SCBWI Singapore group wanted to meet with Jacquie so Kenneth and I arranged dinner at Grandma's a local restaurant that is known for Peranakan cuisine. Jacquie ordered the chicken curry and chatted with the rest of the members who all hoped her best-selling magic would rub off on them over dinner.



When the weekend rolled around, Jacquie was back at the Singapore Writers Festival conducting two work shops. They were brilliant and the parents were as enthused as the kids.

 It was a fun two weeks catching up with Jacquie, though she probably had an overdose of the David Seow experience, I was also glad that I managed to catch up with Jacquie's husband, Ian before they left for their tour of the UK. I look forward to their next visit and hopefully next time I'll be able to catch up with Sarah too. 

Lunch with Jacqueline Harvey

So for two weeks, my good friend best-selling author Jacqueline Harvey was in town for school visits and the Singapore Writers Festival. Ken, Emma and I caught up with her for dinner right after the WTA finals and we all went to the dimsum restaurant at ION which is a favourite. Jacquie, her sister Sarah, Mum and had lunch there last year, so we decided to try it again. And as usual it was good!


Mum and I caught up with her again after Dave Liew's book launch and then again on Saturday at the American Club. My friend Channie's daughter Drew and her BFF Sarah are huge fans of Jacqueline's and when I told them we were friends they just had to meet her. Since they missed out on meeting Jacquie last year, we arranged for them to meet her at the club.  So over burgers and chocolate lava cake, the girls got their own one on one with the creator of Alice Miranda and Clementine Rose.  And They went home with signed books and posters. How cool is that?

After lunch, Jacquie went back to work on her next best-seller and I headed back home to work on my next afternoon nap.